The Metronome Will Set You Free (or, It is hard to get lost when you only have to count to ONE)

Several of my students record their lessons. They say it helps them immensely in their practice between lessons. I've adapted my teaching style to help them on the post-lesson tape listening. For example, I will say aloud where to begin, instead of just pointing and saying "start here." That way, when listening with the music in hand, they know where to look (e.g., page 2, line 3, 2nd measure; or just "measure 35"). I also shout messages directly to the tape recorder, e.g., "XYZ will practice abc slowly before moving to the next step."

Recently one of the tape recording students, Student XYZ, sat down and said that after listening to the previous lesson, he was reminded of something I said a few years earlier: "Practice with the metronome every time you practice. It will set you free."

Student XYZ was initially baffled by that statement. How could something so rigid make your playing more free and expressive? But somewhere between a few years ago and the most recent lesson XYZ had an epiphany and finally understood what it meant.

First I need to say that when I give students the task of using the metronome, it is with specific instructions.

Chorus: "Why?"

Play everything very slowly. I mean REALLY slow. My metronome only goes as slow as 40. I'd like it to at least go down to 25, if not 20.

Chorus: Why?

Playing things slowly gives you the opportunity to really program your body to put every note in its proper place, and gives one the chance to play a piece without missing any notes. That is the cosmetic reason. There is an internal component. Having a slow beat in your ear will help you internalize a slow beat when we start counting things on the half and, ultimately, the whole note. One or two slow beats per bar.

Chorus

One half-note at 40 beats per minute (bpm) is two quarter notes at 80 bpm. One half-note at 80 bpm is two quarter notes at 160 bpm. On the quarter-note can lead to some fast and frantic toe-tapping (not allowed in my studio except when playing traditional music). Counting larger values forces you to think of groups of notes, and, ultimately, groups of bars, and not get hung up, bogged down, distracted, and so on, by a bunch of small note values. They are just notes. The big beat helps you turn those small notes into music.

Playing on the big beat gives you more freedom and reduces your responsibility to the time keeping. First, it is much more difficult to get lost if you only have to count to one (OK, sometimes two). Second, your responsibility when counting the breve, or the whole note/whole bar, is limited to getting from beat one to beat one on time. What you do in between, even when playing with others, is your responsibility.

Side bar: My limited experience playing traditional music leads me to believe that while there may be toe tapping, foot stomping, other percussive effects with various body parts, they are not used to keep people in time or to keep from losing their place (I seriously doubt that people who have been playing a particular traditional repertoire for years need help keeping time to the music). To me it seems they are another instrumental part of the music. Toe tapping in classical music, however, is yet another insecure bad habit brought on by a neurotic perception of what passes for a good performance. It helps you set the bar pretty low. "If I just don't get lost, then it will be a good performance." Right. Of course. That's all you need to be a successful classical performer, the ability to not get lost in a concert. Were that the case, I'd have run back to my accounting studies decades ago.

For me, the goal of counting large note values (big beats) and recalibrating your internal metronome, is to expand it to cover 4, 8, or 16 bars or one large phrase as one enormous beat. At any tempo. That is your freedom.

An excellent example of an 18th century piece where you can use this in both slow and fast tempos is the Sonata in D, Op. 1, by Johann-Joachim Quantz. The first movement, Grave e sostenuto, and the second movement, a Presto in 3/4, are the slowest and fastest tempos from the Baroque. Grave e sostenuto according to Quantz (my memory may be faulty here) comes out to around 38 for the eighth-note (that's pretty slow). The Presto comes in at 168 for the quarter-note (that's pretty fast). With both movements, it would be easy to get bogged down on the small note values (38 for the eighth-note? We'll be here for weeks! 168 for the quarter? How will be play those 16th-notes???) and forget about the phrases.

But, if you've practiced counting breves and whole-notes, you'll see the phrases more clearly in the ultra slow movement, and be able to look at a couple of lines of music in the fast movement as one enormous beat. If you think slow, you'll be able to play fast. And that is another concept my students are gestating.